This volume is a study of a single aspect of the grand project of Plutarch's Lives, itself viewed as a realisation and application to biography of Plutarch's theoretical ethics (as seen particularly in the essay On Moral Virtue and the Dialogue on Love). Within the larger project of demonstrating that ‘moral virtue … provide[s] a framework for Plutarch's interpretation of historical sources’ (p. 207), B. sets out to isolate erotic desire (identified largely by the term ἔρως and related vocabulary) as a factor in the psychic makeup and ultimately in the success (or failure) of Plutarch's subjects. The principal pairs of lives studied are the Pelopidas–Marcellus (pp. 64–87), the Alexander–Caesar (Chapter 3, pp. 103–52), the Demetrius-Antony (Chapter 4, pp. 153–94) and the Agesilaus–Pompey (pp. 207–22). Overall, a triadic structure emerges, with Pompey representing the ‘middle ground’ between Antony's failure to control ἔρως and Alexander's ‘extreme self-control’ (pp. 195, 224).
B.'s analysis of Plutarch's psychology forms the basis for the readings of the pairs of lives that are the core of this engaging study, and gives rise to some interesting formulations along the way. Plutarch's notion of the soul is, as one might expect, essentially Platonic, but with a considerable admixture of Aristotelian theory. Like a good Platonist, Plutarch is reluctant to follow Aristotle into disputed areas and in particular maintains a more rigorous separation between reason and passion than Aristotle would. One characteristic of the resultant and distinctively Plutarchan idea of the soul that makes it decidedly different from its antecedents is, however, that eros qua eros emerges with at least a potential positive value (pp. 54–7). Perhaps some of the attractive qualities of Antony (and not just his all-too-evident failings) are to be attributed to this dominant appetite that is also an emotion. One might wonder here if the underlying psychological model is really capable of incorporating such claims, or if perhaps the model itself remains provisional for Plutarch and, while real enough as latent pattern, is easily subordinated to the demands of individual biographies. It is, in any case, a repeated theme of this study that Plutarch has a range of ways of incorporating eros into his portraits of figures conceived as essentially σώϕρονες (e.g. p. 127), and the examination of these intersections of values and drives is the core of B.'s undertaking.
The alternative to the power of eros is clearly sophrosyne (or enkrateia – B. explores the implications of Plutarch's subjects' cultivation of these distinct virtues, but for purposes of this short review we may take them as roughly equivalent), and that this larger tension between passions (or appetites) and the rational (and preferably dominant) portion or aspect of the soul is a repeated theme of the Lives will not come as a surprise. The introductory chapters establish the basic givens of Plutarchan ethical psychology, sometimes predictably going over the same evidence explored by Duff and others,Footnote 1 but exploring in greater depth works of specific relevance to B.'s own topic, such as the Dialogue on Love.
Eros turns out to be a fascinating and revealing focus within the Lives, but the reasons for this are not always explored in as great depth as one might have hoped. First, there is the peculiarity that Plutarch, whose general contribution to our notion of the state of issues relating to sex, sexuality and marriage in the late first and early second centuries is incomparable, nevertheless as a biographer ‘is generally uninterested in sex’ (Duff, n. 1 p. 94). B.'s study, then, occupies itself with an attractive and colourful, though aberrant sample of the Lives in which the sex lives of the subjects do surface in interesting and revealing ways. Surely the wonderful Antony is the first example that will come to mind (where Cleopatra quite literally takes possession of her lover's biography), balanced here with Plutarch's improbable portrait of Alexander as ice maiden (at least until, far from Aristotle, his qualities of self-restraint melt away one by one). Aberrant though the sample may be, there is no doubt about the usefulness of the theme of eros for unlocking much of the richness of these Lives.
Given that eros is primarily sexual desire and that the use of the term to designate compulsive attraction to other objects is inevitably metaphorical, I was disappointed not to find here a more serious encounter with this metaphor in its most famous Plutarchan manifestations. What comes first to mind is the eros of Caesar for δόξα (Chapter 58) and βασιλεία (Chapter 60) – turns of phrase that are in fact quite striking in the context of the Lives. Is this simply the language of Plutarch's sources, visible through his own prose (cf. p. 78 on Livy) or, as B. suggests, is it part of the larger pattern of depiction of (what I would call) the pathology of ambition and lust for power, displayed most remarkably in Caesar and in Demetrius? This is an issue of which B. is clearly aware, and which he brings up at several points, but without pressing it as he might or reaching any new conclusions.
These quibbles aside, B.'s study is one that can be warmly recommended both to students of Plutarchan ethics and to those who aspire to read the Lives with greater sophistication and understanding. The new window into the workings of Plutarch's biographical method he offers has methodological implications for further thematic studies of specific groups of Lives.
